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This morning one of my friends told me I inspired her. I think those were the words she used. My jaw about dropped to the floor since I don’t look ay myself as inspiring in any way. However, as I sit here and write this, I think “why can’t I be inspiring?” I have confessed my mental illness, I most definitely have an eating disorder from years of being told I needed to lose weight. My weight has been in the forefront of my mind for pretty much the last 15 years. I want to be healthy, but it’s certainly not healthy to obsess either. INSTEAD, I am going to work on loving myself right now and taking off the conditions I have put on myself. Like “I’ll love myself more when I lose 10 pounds.” As I write this I realize how RIDICULOUS that even sounds. We want other people to love us unconditionally, but many of us, including myself, aren’t willing to love ourselves unconditionally.

Today is a pretty good day for me mentally. I have woken up all week with 10+ hours of sleep and feeling guilty for not going to the gym. You know what? FUCK IT…..I’m OK!!! The gym does not validate me. GOD validates me. If you don’t believe in God then find something higher than yourself, but also including yourself, and put your value in that. It’s 11:55am and I’m still in my bathrobe, drinking my coffee. I need to go put dinner in the crock pot and get ready to start my day. I work in 30 minutes and I could be telling myself what a loser I am for having done nothing of real importance yet this morning but you know what? Someone told me I inspire them, and that inspired me to write this blog. If it wasn’t for my friend Dawn’s small amount of validation this morning I never would have taken a few minutes to sit down and write this blog. I LOVE to blog. It’s my favorite hobby. I get to sit here and put my thoughts out into the world and hope that someone reads them. Maybe my words will resognate with soemone else. I also get to sit here and watch my cat be a spaz.

Go out and be a FUCKING dragon or a unicorn! Just don’t be an asshole. No one likes an asshole. Don’t be intimidated to love yourself. I’m still working on it.

2015 did not start out the way that I thought it was going to. In fact it started out in what I thought would be the most amazing way and actually really started out in the most disastrous way. I feel hesitant to get into how much of that is the reason because so many people I know read my blog. But what I can say I’ve learned is that in 2014 and in all the years probably prior to that, I’ve just had a very negative undertone to my life. Things never really went the way that I felt like they should. I never had the job that I wanted; things never turned out in my love life the way I wanted them to. I never really wanted to be a wife or a mother and I am indeed a wife and a mother. And I wouldn’t change this for the world PLEASE let me clarify THAT. I think the children I have were brought into my life to settle me down.

However, I’ve recently learned that when you sit with your thoughts you tend to get angry about the way your life has turned out because you dwell on the “this isn’t fair, this is not the way it was supposed to turn out!” Type of thinking. When I got back from LA at the beginning of the year I still was not in a very good space, it took losing a client (even though there were faults on both sides) it took me almost getting divorced like REALLY, REALLY almost getting divorced to shock me back into reality. And when I say shock me back into reality and shake me back into what I want out of life I mean that I actively had to start seeking out what were the most positive things I had going in my life which is really hard to do when you’ve been thinking about all of the negativity in your life for so long.

It’s not an easy task to just start thinking positively overnight! I went into dialectical behavioral therapy for all the wrong reasons, I went into it as a last ditch effort to save my marriage. I never really went into it for just me; for just the improvements it would do for my life. I guess it’s really no wonder why I was still miserable after two or three months of going to this class and going to therapy and not getting anywhere. I wasn’t applying it to MY life.

There’s a lot of things that I have become extremely bitter about over the years since my first husband died, I have taken them out on my husband now who doesn’t deserve it in the least BIT, if anything he’s just tried to be there for me as a shoulder to lean on and all I do is push him away and be mean to him because I’m angry at my life and the way it turned out which is certainly NOT his fault.

See blame is an easy thing to do because it puts the focus onto something or someone else and never really ever puts the focus back on yourself. The blame causes you to never have to take responsibility for any situation. And while I never really thought that I was doing this, unconsciously and consciously I was doing this the the extreme.

Right now I’m just learning to live in the moment, I’ve never really done that before, I’ve always lived in the past, or lived in the future. I’ve always thought about what could’ve been or thought about how I want things to turn out in the future. But I’ve never really sat in the present and really embraced it. This is the longest I have ever kept one job. As of February 2015 I will have been a nail tech for six years. It is the longest I have ever had a career. I will be honest it has not been my first choice in careers. I have a bachelors degree in psychology and it has been my dream to go on to get my Masters and my PhD. I really hope that I can make those dreams comes true, but for now I really want to enjoy every single person who walks through my doors and listen to their stories and embrace each person with the love, kindness, respect, so that the leave my shop feeling better than when they came in. I know that I will have rough days because I do struggle with borderline personality disorder, but I’m getting better and I can feel it. I was so resistant to medications for so long, but I can feel them working, and as I am applying the dialectical behavioral therapy to my life; in the last week I can also see it working. I am also starting to use a little bit of prayer and meditation. I used to be extremely close to God but that’s a whole Nother story for another time. I still love God very much it’s just another story.

I am learning to think before I speak. I’m learning that I don’t have to be so quick to react, I am learning that I don’t have to fix the situation right now. I’m learning I don’t have to prove that I’m right in every situation even if I feel like I am. Sometimes it’s just better to let things go and roll with it. And if you know me that’s a really hard one….lol.

I hope to prove that a Chemical in balance in the brain does not have to overtake you; that you can be stronger and better than what you’re given in this lifetime. This is just one of the many struggles that I have chosen to write about. To be honest I didn’t realize how incredibly difficult it was going to be to put my whole self out there into the world and talk about myself so blatantly honest the way I have; knowing that I have so many people following me on my blog who know me personally.

Be kind to one another, when you’re out in the world, give a half smile to a stranger, it’s not weird it’s KIND. It’s not flirty it’s just being kind. We live in a time where smiling at people is now considered flirting or a half smile at somebody is interpreted in a devious way. This is so sad to me. Kindness should be so much more implemented in our world and that’s what I would like to see in my life going forward. The children of our society need to see us be kind to one another so that they can grow up and pass that forward. Don’t you want your children or your neighbor children to grow up learning how to be kind and loving? Ponder that today as you go through your day.

OK, So I just recently started this new journey of therapy. If you haven’t already, there is a whole post dedicated to DBT therapy you can go read on. Simply put? AMAZING!!!! I’ve only been 4 times but I have learned a plethora of information! Isn’t it logical that if your going to walk someone through all the non so warm and fuzzy times of their lives that you would at least prepare them with tools for emotional success and have them practice these before the real therapy begins?

I went to traditional therapy for SIX years people and I am right back where I was but actually I’m worse because that woman totally screwed me up. Anyway….I’ve been to this one 4 time and I think between this and the small amount of medication I let my doctor put me on, I’m suddenly feeling FANTASTIC for the most part this last week! I struggle with anxiety and actively noticed that my anxiety level was at like practical non-existent compared to my high-strung, if it doesn’t go as it should…everything is.going.to.end.FOREVER……

Anyway, I feel great so I’m totally not going to over think it too much and just roll with it because whatever I’m doing is WORKING! lol.

It is hard work though, I’ll be honest. It’s a lot of constant redirection of thinking. It can be a little exhausting BUT it’s getting a little easier each day with practice patience, self acceptance, self-love, etc…..kinda like the whole nail art adventure I’ve currently embarked upon! I mean if I’m going to live this life I want it to be the best, most influential one I can lead!

If I can change from who I was to who I want to be it’ll be the greatest accomplishment I could even make! I also had a BREAKTHROUGH business idea tonight! More on that later….! Seriously, I think it’s borderline genius and I wouldn’t have to quit my job doing nails to do it if I could make it work. But that’s WAY later down the road, BUT exciting nonetheless!

I’ve also gotten to form some really neat connections lately. I never know how long I’ll ever get with a person before they’ll move, on, have to stop getting their nails done for some reason etc. The BEST part of my job HANDS DOWN is sharing life stories and experiences! Doesn’t it make this life not feel so lonely and scary!? Oh, and we can all realize we’re not crazy because there is someone else out there who is just as ‘cray cray’ as they are on some level! I love the relatability factor I have with 95% of my clients. It’s hard to even say the word client and not refer to my clients as “this friend of mine” which oftentimes I do!

Ok, I really am going to try to keep up my blog a little more consistently!

I haven’t written in quite a few days. I have had a severe case of writers block. This doesn’t generally happen to me. For the most part I have been eager to blog with lots to say; to let you know what’s going on in my life. But lately many things have happened and I have not had the desire to write.

One of my very best friends lost her battle to brain cancer…

Another friend is fighting appendicitis and a liver issue…

My best friends sister has kidney cancer….thankfully it doesn’t look like its spread…

Another friend is in severe back pain and mental pain…

Another friend has something funky going on with her TOE! Hurts like hell!

I know I am missing a few, but you get the point.

I feel very lucky to be healthy. I feel overwhelmed with joy that I am on the right track with my mental health. I have been on my knees for these people in my prayers.

I am so very tired but I have been eager to write SOMETHING….thank you for reading.

Tonight my son, Taylor, was telling me about one of the new friends he’s made at school. My son is a freshman and has never really hung out with a group of “guys” until just recently. Anyway, he was telling me how humbly this young man and his father live due to his father not making a lot of money. This young man had to grow up fast because his mother abandoned him and his father. They are Hispanic, and it sounds like the father works a crazy amount of hours 6 days a week to provide for his son. Taylor was telling me that they had some deep conversations a few nights ago. One of them caught my ear. He said his friend LOVES to cook, and would make a whole chicken and cornbread every night if he could.

I found this to be an EXCELLENT opportunity to teach my son about human conectivity….seeing a need and helping if possible. I got on Facebook, placed a wanted ad for a free or small fee rotisserie for this young man and his father. In about 10 minutes we got a response from a lady that had one she was willing to donate. Taylor was FLOORED that I cared enough to help his friend. But I know what it’s like to be that kid. I grew up very poor with a single mom who worked whatever hours she could get. It was hard.

I am NOT writing this post to get kudos for doing a good deed. I am writing it because I am hoping to inspire other parents to teach their children about kindness. We are living in a world that’s so “all about me” anymore and it’s sad. We should be helping one another where we can. I use EVERY SINGLE OPPORTUNITY I can get to teach my kids a lesson in something. Every conversation can lead to a moment of opportunity to TEACH.

This conversation turned into me telling Taylor how many times I used to overdraft my checking account when I was a young adult because no one ever taught me what a budget was. This turned into giving him examples of several ways banks work.

I feel fortunate that I am so incredibly close with my children. When I talk, they listen. It’s important to build this foundation of trust from an early age.

I am also learning how to give them a LOT more freedom than I ever thought I would be giving them at their ages. They have earned these privileges. But that’s exactly what they are PRIVILEGES; because as fast as they earn them, if they mess up, they can be taken away. Lack of consistency in your discipline will cause your child to question whether you will stick to what you say. Let your YES be YES and your NO mean NO….PERIOD. DO NOT GIVE IN! Let them cry, throw fits, whatever, but do not give in because the second you do, they just learned that they can manipulate you to get what they want if their persistent long enough.

Every single moment is a learning opportunity; it’s your job to spot them and work the conversation into that opportunity without making it sound like a lecture. I’m a total softie when it comes to my kids when they are doing well, but I am a total hard-ass when they are screwing up. It’s a fine balance. It’s not easy and sometimes I stop to question if I am doing it right. But I know that I am doing the best I know how. My goal is to teach my kids all the lessons that I didn’t learn as growing up. Isn’t that the point? To break the cycle of dysfunction and help our children achieve their lives dreams?

So commit….if you are a mom or a dad it is your DUTY to commit to your child everyday. I know I am not perfect but I do give a lot of good advice I’m told. If you have a parenting question that you would like to ask please feel free to email me at nailtechconfessionals@gmail.com. Your question might be something someone else if wondering as well. We are a community, let’s help one another! If I don’t know the answer to your question, I will simply tell you. I won’t make you THINK I know what I’m talking about. I will write more on this later but I am really tired and gonna head to bed.

I had the pleasure of seeing my client/friend Amy today. It is always a pleasure talking to her, but today was different. We talked about the trials and tribulations of life, we talked about the ups and downs and how we deal with each. As we sat and chatted it became quickly apparent that we are very much alike. When sadness falls we tend to withdraw from the world and hide.

She made a very striking point today. She said, “I find myself straddling faith most times.” I asked her what she meant. She said, “When times are dark, I notice how I praise the Lord and put all my faith in Him, but when times are good, I barely acknowledge his presence in my life!” I was dumbfounded when she said this because it struck so close to home for me. Now you don’t have to believe in God to understand what she’s saying here. When times are BAD we tend to pray to God, the universe, Buddha, or whatever higher power you believe in; for me it’s God. But when things are GOOD we don’t give credit where credit is due. I don’t hear myself thanking God when I’m doing wonderful, or anyone else just “thanking the universe” for a great day.

Amy said, I believe that God is allowing me to go through a valley in order for me to refocus on Him. My thoughts on this are “This is a pretty shitty Valley, Amy….but ok” lol. But….she’s RIGHT! God gives us valleys to draw us closer to Him. Which in some ways really freaks me out since I have strayed from God, and haven’t had any major valleys lately. I’d like to think that I always give God the credit for everything, but unfortunately that is not true. How can we take so much responsibility for all the blessings we are given?

I suppose this is where atheists believe that “fate” comes in. I don’t necessarily believe in fate or karma, however you will here me speak of it. When I say the words fate and karma, what I am truly saying is “God.”

Ever since I left my church I have become increasingly ashamed of my faith in God. Why is this? And more importantly, how AWFUL is this? Why should I be ashamed of what I believe? Because there are people out there who have given God a bad name? No one goes around giving the “universe” a bad name! I HATE the word Christian because there are so many HORRIBLE Christians in the world. I know several atheists who are better people than some of the Christians I know. Just because you claim to believe in God or anything else for that matter doesn’t automatically make you a good person. But I truly am a GOOD person. I am NOT perfect, I have tons of flaws, but I am a human being who generally has good intentions when it comes to others.

I would like to think that my friend, Amy, has given me a lot to think about when it comes to straddling faith. Do you straddle? I would love to hear other thoughts and opinions on this….

OK, just so you know, I approach most hard-to-deal-with subjects with humor, because it makes me feel better about my short-comings as a human being, because quite frankly I SUCK at this human thing quite a bit…especially the wife part….

How we’re still together? It can ONLY be GOD! It is the ONLY explanation I have….

I won’t lie, I pride myself on the inside about being good at many things that I do. I feel I am good at raising well-balanced children, maintaining a decent small business, and being a good friend. The one thing I SUCK the most at? Being a wife. It’s the one area that I contradict myself the most on. I expect things out of marriage that I am not necessarily always willing to give in return. I am not good with compromise, and I’m not good with forgiveness. Now…don’t get me wrong, I expect all of these from my husband, BUT I am not always great about returning the grace. It’s a terrible quality to have, I am NOT bragging clearly. Being a mother did not come naturally to me either. It took me YEARS to figure it out. I won’t say I have mastered it, but I think I am pretty good. But being a wife? Not so much….

Ugh….I have been married (this time) for 5 1/2 years (I don’t count the first one since he passed away, and I wasn’t married to the kids dad). Now and I can tell you that it’s been pretty miserable for my husband. It hasn’t ALL been bad, and I absolutely do not take full responsibility for where things have gone wrong. I wish I put my foot down FASTER in some areas, would’ve been more assertive in other areas, BUT the one thing I WASN’T, was NICE and LOVING. I feel like I was generally nice at first (like in the beginning), but when the results weren’t what I thought they should be; I was a venomous snake. See, I believe that I am right about things like 90% of the time, and truly I do believe this. I have had a lot of life experience and I think I am very smart, and intuitive most of the time. I had a marriage counselor once tell me, “You can be 100% right and be dead WRONG at the same time.” I was very confused by this statement. What she meant was, you can be right about something but completely wrong in your delivery, making the other person not even wanting to hear you out. How true is that? I will agree with her that it is true, but I am hot-headed with a short temper. Ask anyone who’s ever dated me.

I am working on this and I have a VERY patient husband. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like everyday of his life has been a living hell, CLOSE…(lol) but not everyday. I have done some things to make it better, and I will share these with you.

1. Kids, I learned early on that our kids are our kids SEPARATELY, meaning “You parent yours and I’ll parent mine.” We have very different parenting styles and I prefer mine. Clearly my kids have to do what they’re told by him, and be respectful to him, but for the most part I do the “parenting” portion with my children…I prefer it this way. It’s not the way I WANTED it when we got married but it is unfortunately the way it ended up. Step-families are very complicated and just because you think you have it all figured out BEFORE you get married, well I hate to say it my friends, but I bet you are sorely disappointed if you, yourself, are in a step-family situation. If you CAN parent together in this situation, my hats are off to you!

2. Money, You make yours and I will make mine. If it were up to me, we’d have separate accounts and just split all the bills evenly, but it’s working OK how it is jointly, we just don’t see eye to eye on how to handle our finances. I say that if this is the case, and you make a fairly equal amount of money or can split the bills evenly so that its overall fair, and everyone is happy…DO IT! Finances are NOT worth fighting about especially when it can be solved with separate checking accounts. I am completely for this. My husband is not, which is fine, we shall continue to see how this works out….

3. Sex, I have a TERRIBLE sex drive. There are 5 MILLION different reasons why this is and I will only list a couple…I think a lot of this is attributed to the fact that my estrogen was sky-high at 654 (it should be at 124, and is currently at 234). According to my doctor this is what has made me want to KILL anyone and everyone in my path (my whole life) about 2 weeks out of the month. She actually asked me how I wasn’t locked up in a loony bin with these numbers. (I asked her if she could admit me to the loony bin just so I could “go on vacation” for a few days. She got a good chuckle out of that. I also had like NO progesterone. Sky high estrogen – no progesterone = a VERY BITCHY woman! My doctor has me on progesterone, an estrogen blocker, and just before Thanksgiving I recently asked for an anti-depressant because the hormone control was not working solely as a problem solver like I thought it would. I LOVE my anti-depressant! I would eat that stuff like it was damn candy! If you’re wondering, so you can get yourself some happiness, and will-power to live, I am on Wellbutrin (300mg) BEST SHIT EVER!!! No weight gain side effects, and I think my sex drive has slightly improved.

I really am trying a harder to be a better wife but sometimes its just HARD! I don’t want to compromise and most of the time, lately, I just want to be alone, which isn’t fair to my husband obviously. It’s not like I don’t like him or love him, I totally do, but sometimes being married interferes with what I want to do, decisions I want to make without consulting another human being etc. I KNOW this is selfish so you don’t have to tell me. I am a MAJOR work in process and quite frankly I don’t know how he does it most weeks. Personally I don’t want to put up with me most days, so I really think God sent an angel because ONLY an angel could put up with me 99% of the time. Clearly I am very difficult….but hey, like I said, I am a work in progress…

So Husband, IF you read this, please know that I love you, I am completely aware of my shortcomings, and I am working on trying to be better…but I think it is going to take my whole life to really get it right….So for all the things I may do in the future that are shitty, I would like to take the time NOW to apologize…just to save time. lol